Uphill All of the Way

 SONG - I’m Walkin’ by Fats Dominio

The view from our hotel of the National Wallace Monument 

Day 22 - May 21

In the morning we hoofed it on up the hill to Stirling Castle. A lot of uphill walking as well as many stairs.  It was a beautiful day with mostly blue skies but a definite nip in the air. There is a storm approaching.  

There isn’t any great way to take a photo of approaching the castle as there are lots of people and walls and more walls but here you can get a hint.

And this is what it looked like beneath the wall in the photo above and I cropped out a lot of busses  

First entry on my list was Queen Anne’s garden which was small but well tended

Of course I found two little boys playing airplane in the garden and it made me miss my two grandsons so much!

We then took a tour of the royal palace of King James V

Unfortunately they had not been refurbished well.  Everything looked new and in poor taste.  Not a lick of old furniture except the four poster bed.  It was painted in loud colors which apparently was as it used to be but felt more like Disneyland to me.

Enough for me as I tend to like more subtle colors and authentic decorations of which I found a few.

The thistle is the flower of Scotland 

Fireplace ornamentations 

And of course Mr. B wanted to check out the boy toys - canons

Great views from the top of the hill but after viewing several more rooms we decided to head cross country through the massive graveyard of Holy Rude and visit the 15th century church which was peaceful and quite lovely. Nice docents inside that gave us maps and were so enthusiastic about telling us about their church.  

 Returned to our hotel for lunch & I had a G & T with a side of Motrin because both of my knees were hurting. For lunch we shared a sandwich but it was awful with slivers of cheese and pickle chutney. Uggh. Thank goodness we ordered chips (fries). Went to our room to rest for a bit. Jim made us a dinner reservation at Portcullis which we passed by on the way to the castle. Looks promising. It’s starting to get cold and looks like rain. Yes it rained but we got a parking spot right in front and we were cozy and had a great dinner. Mr B got to talking with the owner, Jamie who knows of lots of Baird’s in Stirling. 

It used to be a grammar school in 1787 and then it became a munitions warehouse and now it’s a wonderful restaurant 

Mr. B said it was the best steak pie he has ever had!